EBA highlights customer benefits of open banking

The Euro Banking Association’s (EBA) open banking working group has issued a report analysing how open banking strategies may help financial service providers to “take customer-centricity to the next level.”

“Following our earlier review of the business relevance of open banking and open application program interfaces (APIs) for banks, our latest analysis focuses on how open Banking can become a key enabler of a customer-centric business strategy and what this means both for customers and their financial service providers,” said Vincent Brennan, head of group payments, Bank of Ireland, and chair of the EBA’s open banking working group.

“By embracing open banking concepts, banks and other financial service providers can put customers more in control of the products and services they consume in relation to their bank accounts and from which service providers they wish to buy the respective product or service. This enhanced level of control and choice is what customers expect to experience in an increasingly connected digital ecosystem. And our analysis shows that this move also opens up new business opportunities and roles for banks and other providers.”

The new analysis paper is the EBA’s second publication on open banking issued since its electronic alternative payments working group turned its exclusive focus on the topic in 2016 and became the EBA open banking working group.